Thursday, December 17, 2009

These cassettes were obtained at the end of an era: Woolworths on Santa Fe's plaza was fazing out their Spanish cassettes years ago, and BOOMING BASSLINES was there to swoop on anything that said cumbia, mambo or rancheros-

Sound quality is quite listenable: check the scorching Latina who voiced "El Africano" and others, and check that squishy keyboard on "El Guiro", kinda like Calypso (soca) and Cadence (zouk) among other styles from the multitude of Caribbean islands.

Pretty sure these are Mexican tapes of Colombian and Mexican artistes.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Eighties style Heptones led by Barry, doing over the Gladiators' "streets of gold/ dreadlocks the time is now/roots natty" in a dance hall fashion- Not sure if Albert wrote that one or not- Included is a BOOMING BASSLINES discomix edit for your dubbing pleasure-

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Imagine how the Heptones feel: coming from humble beginnings and rising to great heights internationally, they have watched as virtually everything they recorded for Coxsone has become a world standard "riddim", versioned mercilessly by countless producers and voiced by thousands worldwide. As you read this, someone is in the studio building a new version of a Heptones riddim and djs are playing any number of records based on their compositions.

Ranging from classic versions that are remarkable, to god-awful dance hall one-shots soon forgotten, Earl Morgan, Leroy Sibbles and Barry Llewellyn have recieved zero royalties from any of it.

The music presented here is from their sessions for Harry Js, grouped together by riddim and cleaned up a little. What a creative time in the music!This music is bad and beautiful-